sasha_feather: Cassian Andor looking to the side against a light blue background. (Cassian Andor)
Couple of movies that I do not recommend.

45 Years, director Andrew Haigh, streaming with ads on one of the free services.

I like this director's other work but this film felt like it was 45 years long. It's about 2 long-married white British people whose relationship is not so great. I did not care about them. I think this falls into the "family drama" genre, which is vehemently not my genre because I don't understand the and the people all seem unpleasant.

The Impossible, 2012, Netflix.

More white British people: This film has been rightly criticized among my circles for making a story about a devastating natural disaster in Thailand center on a white tourist family. I was curious because of my interest in survival and disaster narratives and how this film fits into the genre. I agree that this film is racist and classist-- it's so enraging when the reunited family, at the end, leave an over-taxed Thai hospital, get on a private plane to head to a hospital in Singapore... and there are empty seats on that plane. Like some other films in this genre, the plot reinforces the idea of the nuclear family as the central organizing principle of society. The best movies about disaster have a stronger message, one about collective care and helping strangers. There is a moment or 3 in "the Impossible" that get at this-- ones where the mom instructs her son to help others, "even if it's the last thing we do." But this message of helping others gets a bit lost as the mother gets more ill. It seems she is that force in this family.

What I will say in favor of this movie is that it is very respectful in the portrayal of children. Tom Holland plays Lucas, the eldest kid, and he does a great job with it.
sasha_feather: Black, white, and red image of woman with futuristic helmet (Sci Fi Woman)
Things I've watched recently!

Rewatches that are sadly copaganda:

Hot Fuzz. Still have nostalgic fondness for this movie because of associations with friends and with fandom, but, no longer a favorite since the cops are the good guys and are cool. Olivia Colman is in it, before she got very famous. I don't think there is a single person of color in this whole film?! I've really moved on from Hot Fuzz and probably will not re-watch.

Die Hard. A Christmas tradition for those of us who love action movies, and honestly, it's brilliantly written, acted, and directed. Does contain plenty of copaganda. Part of Bruce Willis' appeal is that he flirts with nearly everyone he meets and has the air of a self-assured bisexual babe. The set pieces are amazing. The pacing is good. Holly Gennaro (sometimes McClane) is bad ass in way that is like, this woman tells the truth and does what is right.

After John McClane uses too much explosive and blows out a whole floor of windows, one of the cops outside complains to him that his people are now covered in glass. "Glass? Who cares about glass?" McClane says in frustration.

Later, John has to crawl into a bathroom and pull a shard of glass from his foot. This is his lowest point, where he conveys a message to his wife, because he does not think he is going to survive. Who cares about glass indeed.

Will probably re-watch, as I still have a fannish interest in these characters.

The Fugitive, the 90s one with Harrison Ford. Streaming on Paramount Plus.

A fairly simple cat-and-mouse chase story, with good performances and some great cinematography. Dr. Richard Kimble rather accidentally escapes from prison and sets out to prove his innocence. The best scenes are where he decides to help patients while putting himself at risk of discovery.

Does contain copaganda, as the US Marshals are largely portrayed as competent and likeable characters. The most upsetting part concerns a house raid where they have tracked one of the other fugitives.

----
Moving on to non-copaganda, I watched The Station Agent 20 years after seeing it before, remembering little of it. I'm much more positioned to appreciate this movie this time around. What a gem.

A slow, quiet, fairly low-dialog film about 3 misfits who become friends in a small New Jersey town. Stars Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannavale, Michelle Williams.

Absolutely lovely and not too long! Just 1 hour 29 minutes. Just 4 works on the Ao3, but good OT3 potential in this film.

Runaway Train, streaming free on Tubi, starring John Voigt.

I think I expected this film to be more fun-- a prison escape, a ridiculous runaway train scenario with 4 engines, the buddy potential of two escapees. But instead it goes for a serious drama about masculinity or freedom or something. There is homoeroticism but not in a fun way. There's yelling and plenty of violence and a lot of misogyny. It doesn't even end in a train crash, the crash is implied and off-screen. Not for me. I did enjoy the detail that because he knows he going to have to escape by river, in the winter, the main guy fashions a sort of wet suit by greasing his skin and putting saran wrap all over himself.
sasha_feather: Cassian Andor looking to the side against a light blue background. (Cassian Andor)
Two Spielberg + Tom Hanks movies from the early 2000s.

Catch Me if You Can has such a fun premise: Leo DiCaprio plays a young con man named Frank who gets jobs as an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer. Tom Hanks plays the FBI agent who chases him down. Unfortunately this is played for Serious Drama and Daddy Issues, and was not for me, though overall I think it's an OK movie. The beginning and ending were too long and slow. An editor needed to cut a bunch of stuff out including a very cringey scene with Jennifer Garner as a high-end sex worker. Frank uses his forging skills to cheat her out of 1400 dollars and it's played like some kind of gross male fantasy.

The story goes something like, Frank really wants to please his father (Christopher Walken), and this leads him down a wrong path. The right path is finding a positive father figure in the Tom Hanks character.

If you like con artist stories, Leverage is just so much better. "The Pretender" is another example of a story where someone uses his genius skills to help people and is much more warm and fun.

The Terminal also has an interesting premise but it fails to deliver. An Eastern European man, Viktor (Tom Hanks) becomes temporarily stateless and gets stuck living in a airport. This was SUCH a frustrating movie, because it had a bunch of things going for it-- good actors, some comedy, a familiar setting that gets re-contextualized, and the potential to say something interesting. But the story structure was bad. You'd think that before someone spent all that money making a movie, they would make sure the story and script are good. That is the FIRST thing one should do, the foundation.

Stanley Tucci plays the antagonist, a guy in charge of the airport, and his character is all over the place, no clear motivation or development, does not act in any kind of consistent way. There was a great moment where I thought this story might be about resisting a police state (airport as metaphor/tiny police state), or finding ways to resist and de-escalate the conflict of policing, but of course it didn't hold up.

Catherine Zeta-Jones, similar. She spends the movie getting to know Viktor and breaking away from her bad boyfriend. But then in the end she goes back to the boyfriend for no reason.

Zoe Saldana and Diego Luna were both super cute, but their romance was not well developed and ended up making no sense at all.

So, anti-rec for this film.

What my family and I absolutely love watching is The Incredible Dr. Pol, a reality-based show about farm veterinarians in Michigan. Dr. Pol is an old man with a ton of energy, a ton of experience, humor, warmth, a great love for animals. It's streaming on Hulu and we watched 3 or 4 episodes before the technology gave up on me. We used to watch it on cable but my parents gave up cable; maybe I'll see if I can borrow some DVDs or something. There are several various vet shows with a lot of episodes and this could keep us happily entertained in the evenings. (nota bene, I made a festivid about vet shows.)

We all find Dr. Pol and his colleagues super engaging and my dad even shared a story I hadn't heard him tell before, about his dad pulling a calf. He said his dad put the pulling rope around his shoulders, put his feet up on the back of the cow, and put his whole weight into it. On the show they have a chain-and-ratchet method for pulling calves that are stuck.

My dad said, "We're farm people, but I wonder what non-farm people think of this show?" It's true that they show a lot of the down and dirty of small farms and I love this. Unlike some other vet shows, Dr. Pol does not over-treat or over-test. The vets also see all kinds of animals: lizards, turkeys, camels, reindeer, parrots, chickens, etc.
sasha_feather: monster on the phone (monster on the phone)
Watched a LOT of crap lately.

Recommended with caveats:
7 Days Out, a docu-series about big events. I loved the one about the Cassini space mission's end. I skipped the fashion one. Netflix.

Kind of interesting and/or fun:
Beast, a monster-type movie where the monster is a lion. Stars Idris Elba.
Light in the Water. A documentary about the West Hollywood Aquatics club, a gay club, particularly about the 80s and 90s.
Make it out Alive: a docu-series about various disasters. Done in a very Over the Top style but the disasters themselves were interesting to learn about, and they interview people who survived.

Did not finish:
Akron, an indie gay movie, but it seemed to be more about un-processed trauma involving the death of a child, so, you know, kind of a downer.

I did finish it but:
Hacksaw Ridge. This sucked; Andrew Garfield's pretty brown eyes can't save a bad movie that has Mel Gibson's stink on it. Naturally it got Oscar nominations, and one win (sound mixing).
sasha_feather: Bright green grass (green grass)
I have lighthouses on my mind lately.

I watched the film "The Lighthouse" because it was nominated for Festivids, and for some reason I did watch to the end, but I fast-forwarded through many parts of it.
The premise involves a new assistant lightkeeper arriving at a lighthouse in 1890, to join the more experienced keeper. Their relief does not arrive due to heavy storms, and they start having visions and nightmares and get violent. The setting is depicted as bleak, cold, disgusting; it's filmed in black and white with a sort of squarish aspect ratio.

It's supposed to be psychological horror, though I did not find it scary; I was hoping the mermaids and monsters were real. I enjoy the weirdness of Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, but that was about all I got out of it. I'm mystified by how this was nominated for an Oscar. I suppose the film was trying something, being experimental, but in my mind it did not succeed.

So anyways, then I read a very good Harry Potter fanfiction with a similar premise, but that is worlds better.

That Which Shall Not be Unearthed by anonymous (I believe the author will be revealed at some point as it's part of a challenge).

Harry takes a job as a lighthouse keeper because he wants to get away from society and live somewhere peaceful and remote, to deal with his depression and PTSD. When he arrives, he finds that the other keeper is Draco Malfoy, and they will both be working the job for the next year. It's been long enough since they saw each other, that they are different people now, and are accepting of each other's presence.

This story has a creepy element to it which involves dreams and visions, but of course the magic is real, and it's not some kind of lesson about isolation driving someone mad. This mysterious magical through-line complements the cozy romance of Harry and Draco getting to know one another in a beautiful, small, remote place. They see the aurora borealis and admire the sea. They drink whisky in front of a fireplace and cuddle on the sofa. Their work is soothing to them, as it involves physical activity and straight-forward tasks that can be accomplished with not much difficulty. It's a balm for these damaged people to work this job.

Lighthouses are inherently interesting, and it was fun to read a story that takes place in one.
sasha_feather: beautiful gray horse. (majestic horse)
I visited my parents for about a week and a half and had a really nice time. My dad and I both love watching movies and we even went to the movie theater!

Dream Horse
Starring Toni Collette, Damien Lewis.

I loved this little film about a Welsh villager (Collette) who decides to form a syndicate to support a race horse. She and her husband are empty-nesters and she needs a project, so she researches and buys a retired race horse to breed. She recruits various villagers to help her and financially support the venture. This is based on a true story (BOATS) and is very sweet. The people feel like real people; many of them are older folks. There is not a lot of conflict and that's fine. A really enjoyable film.

Content note: One horse dies off-screen (from complications of giving birth). The race horse, Dream Alliance, lives and is fine.

In the Heights

This was fun; I don't have deep thoughts about it. Or rather I do, but I will defer to Latinx people writing about the subject. I would have appreciated captions for both this and the previous film.

Stowaway - Netflix
Starring Toni Collette, Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson.

I really wanted to like this but it was just sad and slow. Three astronauts begin a mission to Mars; they find an accidental stowaway on board. He appears to be a engineer who somehow got stuck behind an access panel; it makes no sense. I could hand-wave that if this were a better story. Other implausible things happen: the CO2 scrubber breaks irreparably, and there is no back-up. The crew contemplates killing the stowaway character in order to preserve O2 for themselves, which was uncomfortable since he's the only Black character. He does end up living though; someone else sacrifices themself.

This made me realize that I prefer space stories where everyone lives. It's satisfying when there is a hard survival problem, and people put their heads together and come up with ideas, and they save everyone.

Windtalkers - 2002. This was on my parents' DVR.

How did Nicholas Cage ever become a movie star? He is terrible in this, and the movie is pretty bad all around. I'm very annoyed at it but it's not worth writing about all the ways it annoyed me. Adam Beach did a nice job as the Navajo wind talker; he deserved a better film.
sasha_feather: beautiful gray horse. (majestic horse)
I need things to watch so I tried "The Angel," on Netflix, because it has Marwan Kenzari from the Old Guard. He is pretty, but this movie is a massive bore. Not recommended. Kenzari plays a real-life Egyptian spy, Ashraf Marwan, a government official who spied for Israel during the 1970s. His motives aren't clear and as a character he's not especially well-developed. The acting is good but the script is just flat.

Some good news today from around the world:
1. Elliot Page, actor from the X-Men, Inception, and the Umbrella Academy, came out as trans. I'd link to an article but they all seem to either dead-name Page, and/or use a screen shot of text that is inaccessible.

2. Cher helped re-home an elephant called Kaavan. He was alone at a zoo in Pakistan, but is now in Cambodia at a sanctuary with other elephants. They put him on a plane and he slept on the journey.
Here's an article, note that it has an auto-play video: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-elephant-idUSKBN28A0VP
sasha_feather: Retro-style poster of skier on pluto.   (Default)
Brideshead Revisited - movie not mini-series.

I liked the first part of this, which is about the friendship and romance between Charles (Matthew Goode) and Sebastian (Ben Whishaw). Sebastian's family lives at a palatial estate called Brideshead; the young men hang out there for a summer and drink wine, go swimming in the giant fountain, etc. The era is the time between the world wars, and the costumes are very fun.

The second half of the movie is about how Charles falls in love with Julia, Sebastian's sister. It is boring and I only half-watched this part.

The wealth displayed in this movie is unconscionable, but the movie doesn't seem to criticize here; it's a bit like "Crazy Rich Asians" in that way. Despite the characters' immense wealth and privilege, they seem to feel trapped into making certain choices, and it isn't entirely clear why; perhaps in the book this is made clear, but in the movie, the characters come off as ineffectual and filled with unnecessary angst.

Content notes: alcoholism, Catholicism, jealousy and infidelity.

The Wound - 2017

This is a South African gay film about the Xhosa initiation into manhood, which involves an adult circumcision ritual, fasting, and isolation from the wider society. It has good reviews, but it creeped me out on several levels, and I stopped watching after about 15 minutes.

The POV character is a gay man, Xolani, who has been hired to be a caretaker during this ritual. He has an ongoing tryst with another one of the caretakers, but this relationship seems very unhealthy. It seemed like the film is exploring masculinity, including the toxic variations of masculinity, which was uncomfortable.
sasha_feather: Logan from X-men (Logan)
"Hollywood" on Netflix is a new limited series by Ryan Murphy and Janet Mock (both are queer). I don't mean to yuck anyone's yum, but this show is a MESS. I was with it for the first episode or two, but it was very rushed at the end, and is the kind of show where I keep thinking about new things that bothered me.

This show is mostly about a group of people in 1947 Hollywood who are trying to make a progressive film, at first called "Peg" but later changed to "Meg." The film is about a struggling actress trying to make it in Hollywood, so there are 3 levels of meta going on here: it's a show about a movie about an actress, which is ambitious, and interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful.

There are some good things going for this show: good actors, older women in powerful roles, queer people, fun 1947 fashion, and people who are trying to help each other out.

anti-squee )
sasha_feather: the back of furiosa's head (furiosa: back of head)
I originally had a mostly-positive feeling about JoJo Rabbit, but something niggled in the back of my mind, something that told me I couldn't recommend this film to others, even though I could not articulate why.

I went looking for looking for criticisms to see if someone else could tell me why I felt this way. I found this article at the New Yorker:

Springtime for Nazis: How the Satire of JoJo Rabbit Backfires. This article includes a basic summary of the first part of the film.

Satire is very difficult. One thing that can happen when you have likeable actors such as Sam Rockwell playing villains, is that you elicit sympathy for your villains. And then Sam Rockwell's character acts in sympathetic ways, and saves the main character, and you are basically encouraging identification with that character.

Taika Waititi does such an excellent job lampooning vampires in "What we do in the shadows," but: vampires aren't real.
sasha_feather: Retro-style poster of skier on pluto.   (Default)
Jesse said something interesting today about violence in media, in this case in The Expanse: horrible things are treated as horrible, and reflect on morality. The society is dangerous, and the characters are not only trying to stay alive, but are trying to save the world.

I watched Mr. Right the other day on Netflix. This is a comedy about a hitman who falls in love while trying to reform his ways. I find Sam Rockwell and Anna Kendrick charming on their own, and they were charming together. But the violence in this movie is not treated seriously. I don't like to see death treated so cavalierly, which is my problem with "cozy" murder mysteries too. I was perhaps not in the right mind-set for this movie, but I'm also not sure I ever will be.

I also watched a comedy special today, by Fortune Feimster, on Netflix. It is great to see a fat lesbian on TV always, but this was disappointing: she jokes about loving to eat, makes a couple of diabetes "jokes", and talks about intentional weight loss. I liked the parts that were about her family, being gay, and about growing up in the South, but it always seemed to come back to the fat jokes. It made me think about what Hannah Gadsby has said on this topic:

"Do you understand what self-deprecation means when it comes from someone who is already in the margins? It's not humility. It's humiliation. I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak."
sasha_feather: Logan from X-men (Logan)
My dad and I watched a bunch of things during my low-key vacation visit.

Knives Out - 2019 (in theaters)

We both really enjoyed this "Who Dunnit" mystery. It felt a bit old-fashioned, like an Agatha Christie tale. The film takes place mostly in a huge, gorgeous house. Solidly entertaining, very competently made, and features a large ensemble cast. It's not gory. Content note: vomiting.

The Witcher - Netflix - 2019

A fun romp in the style of Hercules and Xena, but with a larger budget. It's a bit confusing, as there are 3 timelines that follow our three main characters: Yennifer, a sorceress; Geralt, the Witcher (monster hunter); and Cirilla, a young princess whose homeland is invaded. Some things did not make sense to me, but I rolled along with the show and it was a good time. Content notes: violence, monsters, way too many topless scenes for Yennifer, too much heterosexuality, one animal death, abusive situations, magical disability cure, fertility issues.

Living with Yourself - Netflix - 2019

Wow I hated this so much?!? It made me angry.

Paul Rudd stars as Miles, a feckless suburban husband who is depressed. He goes to a strip-mall spa to try and feel better, only to wake up in a shallow grave. He discovers that a somewhat improved version of himself is now living his life, and doing it better.

The first 2 episode cover this premise from the perspective of Original Miles and New Miles, and these two episodes alone are kind of funny and charming. By episode 4 I was thoroughly irritated with both versions of Miles, who lie to their wife Kate about the situation (she's played by Aisling Bea-- an actress 15 years younger than Rudd). The episodes are short though, so we decided to finish out the show. It only got more incoherent, and asked the audience to care about Miles and Kate's mundane marriage problems. Kate wants a baby, and Miles refuses to go to the fertility clinic, for example. Strange plot lines seemed to promise a twist that never came. At one point, Original Miles gets kidnapped by FDA agents and locked into a lactation room, only to be let go the next day-- but not after he drinks the breast milk in the mini-fridge. A plot line about Miles' job as an ad man goes nowhere. New Miles is rejected by Kate and contemplates both murder and suicide. The end of the show is infuriating: Kate announces she's pregnant, and does not know which Miles is the father, and the three of them hug. I guess babies solve everything!

This was so, so bad.
sasha_feather: Nux running (mad max) (nux running)
Netflix is a blessing for me because it helps me rest and gives me something to do when I'm feeling especially ill. Here are some non-fiction shows I watched recently.

All in My Family

This filmmaker, Hao Wu, is a gay man living in New York with his partner. His parents and extended family live in China. This documentary is about his family and their reactions to him, his partner, and their new kids. I kind of hated this: his mother is a nightmare by my standards. There is not a lot of pushback against the family's homophobia and other biases (the father speaks of pinching the babies' noses to make them less flat, for example). 40 minutes.

Diagnosis

Lisa Sanders runs the diagnosis column for the NY Times, and I enjoyed her book, "Every Patient Tells a Story." She seems like a deeply kind and thoughtful person. However, this show is extremely flawed. The episodes are approximately 45 minutes when the material to fill them is about 20 minutes' worth. The premise itself is troublesome: assuming that there exists a diagnosis for every patient. There are plenty of un-discovered or un-characterized illnesses, and many diagnoses that are syndromes or just a latin description of symptoms. Some of the episodes were deeply frustrating to watch. Not recommended.

Blown Away

Just a fun and beautiful show that is a glass-blowing competition. I liked this a lot. The episodes are short and I would have liked more technical explanations, but OTOH they moved along nicely.

Exhibit A

Four gripping episodes explore junk science that is used in courts to scapegoat and railroad (probably) innocent people. Each episode explores a particular case, a particular defendant, and the type of forensic "science" used to go after the person. This material was so thought-provoking and enraging!

Episode 1 is about video; in this case the video itself was not flawed, but the prosecution brought in an "expert" who had some kind of fake technology that convinced the jury that the video was lying to them, that the perpetrator was not 5'7" but was actually 6'2". The interviews with this so-called expert are WILD; he acts totally convinced of his own bullshit.

The other topics are: cadaver dogs, Touch DNA, and blood spatter.

These episodes are very skillfully made, and I recommend this if you are interested in the material. Some of it is very upsetting (murder, child abduction, etc). There was also a shelved episode about bite mark analysis (https://www.talkhouse.com/the-lost-pilot-episode-of-exhibit-a-in-words-and-photos/). I admire Netflix for having this documentary along with "Making a Murderer" and "The Keepers", which are critical of police and district attorneys. It's clear to me that there are terrible systemic problems and that forensic science (so called) is one of the tools in the toolbox of evil and corruption.
sasha_feather: Big book of Lesbian Horse stories book cover (lesbian horse stories)
Trying to catch up and log all the things I've seen lately! The TLDR of this post is I recommend watching "Weird City", episode 1, on YouTube and I anti-rec "LOEV" on Netflix.

Concussion (not the Will Smith film) - Netflix.

A lesbian housewife, Abby, gets a concussion and begins to realize that she can't stand her life. Her wife doesn't want to have sex with her, she's fed up with her kids, etc. So, she hires a couple of sex workers. Then she decides to become a sex worker and she sees clients in a studio apartment that she is renovating.

I haven't seen a movie with this premise before, and I enjoyed the parts where she was seeing clients, mostly because she was really enjoying the work. Abby wants to have hook-ups but in a way she can control. A way that has rules and parameters. There are only 2 men in this film and I don't think they talk to each other!

This is a slow movie, especially in the beginning, and badly lit. The ending is ambiguous. The culture that Abby is a part of consists of wealthy white suburbanites (perhaps in Connecticut or New Jersey), and the people around her are pretty insufferable. They are bored and all they can think of to do with their time is to exercise constantly and re-decorate their houses.

I enjoyed the novelty of this story. At times it was frustrating that Abby did such a bad job communicating with her wife.

Content notes: none that I can think of.

LOEV - Netflix.

In Mumbai, two old friends, Sahil and Jai, reconnect and go on vacation for a weekend. I was digging this story due to the beautiful landscapes and what seemed to be a developing romance. I especially enjoyed watching Sahil (Dhruv Ganesh), who is fine-boned with big eyes and a lovely singing voice.

But then towards the end of the film, one of the friends rapes the other. This is unexpected and gross and the consequences are not dealt with. In retrospect this colors the whole film. The young men teasing each other and goading each other into doing things ("I insist you play the guitar", etc)-- makes it seem like they don't take consent seriously.

Sadly Dhruv Ganesh died shortly after this film was made, and was only in 5 films.

This is an anti-rec, sadly, though I enjoyed the first part of the movie.

Weird City - YouTube

This is a anthology-type show (think Black Mirror, but comedy) where the setting is a near-future city. The rich people live above the line, the poor below.

Episode 1, "The One"

Fan favorite Dylan O'Brien plays Stu, a young man looking for love. He signs up for a service that is supposed to match him with his One True soulmate. The person who shows up at the door is Burt, played by Ed O'Neill (Modern Family). Both men are taken aback-- both were expecting their soul mate to be a woman-- but decide to go get some food. They find out they have a lot in common, and they fall in love.

This was a breath of fresh air after the somewhat dreary gay movies I've been watching. Absurd, funny, and warm, this tale is about finding love in unexpected places. It packs a lot into just 30 minutes. LeVar Burton has a small role. Co-written by Jordan Peele.

Highly recommended! No content notes.
sasha_feather: Nux running (mad max) (nux running)
Agora

I noped out of this one about half way through because it was dreary. Rachel Weisz as Hypatia was great, but she was apparently the only woman in all of Alexandria, if this film is to be believed. It bothered me that even her slave, who attended to her in the bath, was male. There was something very sad, almost joyless, about this film, so I turned it off and read the Wikipedia summary instead.

Mute - netflix

Not awful, but certainly not good. A disappointing showing from Duncan Jones, who previously directed Moon and Source Code. In a near-future Berlin, a mute bartender searches for his missing girlfriend. The circle these two moved in is full of seedy members of organized crime, including black-market surgeons who torture people. We eventually find out that the protagonist's girlfriend has been murdered. Oh, and she was the only woman in the film, except for some small roles for sex workers (Florence Kasumba! what are you doing in this movie?). And there is a totally unnecessary and strange sub-plot around pedophilia. A very WTF movie.
sasha_feather: horses grazing on a hill with thunderheads (horses and lightning)
Source Code. 2011, 93 min.

LOVED this and not sure why I hadn't seen it before. A science fiction thriller by the director of "Moon". Air Force pilot Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up on a communter train not knowing where he is or what is going on. A woman is talking to him and calling him "Sean". He goes to the restroom, looks in the mirror, and sees someone else's face. Some similar themes to "Moon" about how technology can be used to exploit people.

Okja. Netflix, 2017.

I didn't like this; it seemed like a message move whose message was garbled. It's a science fiction movie with poor world building and the script needed a few more edits. Okja is a "super pig" being raised by a teenage girl in the mountains of Korea. The project is run by a corporation trying to create and market new meat products that are supposedly beneficial for the environment. From the beginning it didn't make sense: why would a food animal take 10 years to mature? That would be way too expensive and is completely unrealistic. Do some research if you're going to write about meat production.

tv

Apr. 29th, 2017 01:50 am
sasha_feather: Retro-style poster of skier on pluto.   (Default)
I tried a couple of shows out and rejected them:

Hap and Leonard (on Netflix)
I wanted to like this because the guy who plays Omar on the Wire (Michael K. Williams) plays a gay Vietnam vet. But after a couple of episodes, I didn't like any of the characters. Williams' character, Leonard, was OK, but everyone else was mean and horrible.

Limitless (on Netflix)

A movie spin-off. Brian thinks of himself as a loser and a disappointment to his dad, even though his dad is supportive. He takes a drug called NZT, which temporarily turns him into a super-genious. I enjoyed the pilot because he used his genious for a bunch of things, like diagnosing his father's illness, solving a murder, playing music really well in a park, and talking to people about their problems (social intelligence!). But in the 2nd episode, it's clear that this is just another procedural about a white guy who is a rule-breaking genious for the FBI. He gets away with his rule-breaking because he produces results (and also b/c privilege). The science in the 2nd episode was also pretty bad: an engineered flu strain that was supposedly used for assasinations. Riiiiight. I stopped watching.

I settled on an addictive, violent, perhaps overly dramatic, gripping show on Hulu: BLACK SAILS. This has lots of queerness and is very pretty.
sasha_feather: the back of furiosa's head (furiosa: back of head)
I'm angry about episode 4.3. I wish this show would stick to its strong suit, and write about women, children, and childbirth, and stay away from "Very Special Episodes". This episode gave me a real life stomachache.

Read more... )
sasha_feather: Retro-style poster of skier on pluto.   (Daredevil)
I read the first two volumes of "Sex Criminals" by Fraction and Zdarksy. I was annoyed because it has a great concept but could have been so much better than it is.

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sasha_feather: Black, white, and red image of woman with futuristic helmet (Sci Fi Woman)
Just for the record, I hated "Ex Machina". It was a science fiction movie about straight male fantasies come to life and gone wrong. It was gross.

This blog post gets into some of the racist stuff in the movie:

http://multiasianfamilies.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-ex-machina-abuses-women-of-color.html

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